About Me

Known principally for his weekly political columns and his commentaries on radio and television, Chris Trotter has spent most of his adult life either engaging in or writing about politics. He was the founding editor of The New Zealand Political Review (1992-2005) and in 2007 authored No Left Turn, a political history of New Zealand. Living in Auckland with his wife and daughter, Chris describes himself as an “Old New Zealander” – i.e. someone who remembers what the country was like before Rogernomics. He has created this blog as an archive for his published work and an outlet for his more elegiac musings. It takes its name from Bowalley Road, which runs past the North Otago farm where he spent the first nine years of his life. Enjoy.

Bowalley Road Rules

The blogosphere tends to be a very noisy, and all-too-often a very abusive, place. I intend Bowalley Road to be a much quieter, and certainly a more respectful, place.So, if you wish your comments to survive the moderation process, you will have to follow the Bowalley Road Rules.These are based on two very simple principles:Courtesy and Respect.Comments which are defamatory, vituperative, snide or hurtful will be removed, and the commentators responsible permanently banned.Anonymous comments will not be published. Real names are preferred. If this is not possible, however, commentators are asked to use a consistent pseudonym.Comments which are thoughtful, witty, creative and stimulating will be most welcome, becoming a permanent part of the Bowalley Road discourse.However, I do add this warning. If the blog seems in danger of being over-run by the usual far-Right suspects, I reserve the right to simply disable the Comments function, and will keep it that way until the perpetrators find somewhere more appropriate to vent their collective spleen.

Followers

Monday, 31 December 2012

The Master Of Jack: New Zealand's original egalitarianism confronted all who stood athwart the path to a fuller life. The new egalitarianism argues that if Jack is only willing to get with programme he’ll soon realise that the fuller life is already here – to be enjoyed on Jack’s terms, and nobody else’s. John Key is both the chief spokesman and ultimate exemplar of this new egalitarian spirit. Is he our master? Yes. Does that mean he’s better than us? No way!

NEW ZEALANDERS’ WILLINGNESS to overlook the peculiarities of
their Prime Minister is remarkable. This past year John Key’s lapses of taste
and his penchant for populist vulgarities were exceeded only by his
convenient lapses of memory and his obvious disdain for the niceties of political
accountability. And yet, the Prime Minister and his National Party-led
government remain extraordinarily popular. Clearly, close to half the New
Zealand electorate is simply not bothered by Mr Key’s lapses of taste and
memory; his crude populism; or even by his healthy disregard for the etiquette
of democratic politics. In fact, they rather like it.

The egalitarian spirit for which New Zealanders are justly
admired around the world would appear to have undergone a remarkable change.
Where once the Kiwi claim was that “Jack's as good as his master”; egalitarianism’s
contemporary iteration seems to be “Nobody’s better than Jack”.

The shift in tone is significant. In their original
assertion that Kiwi Jack (and, of course, Kiwi Jill) was his or her master’s
equal, New Zealanders were repudiating the strict social hierarchies of the Old
World and signalling their refusal to allow either their individual or
collective aspirations to be constrained by the considerations of class,
gender, ethnicity or ethical conviction. It was egalitarianism of an expressly
political kind: embedded in the nation’s institutions and reflected back to us
via its intellectual and artistic traditions. Think Smith’s Dream or Good-bye
Pork Pie.

Part and parcel of this political form of egalitarianism was
an ingrained suspicion of and resistance to anyone who tried to boss Jack
around. Politicians, businessmen, policemen, judges, headmasters, bureaucrats, foremen
– the boss-class in general – all became targets for the scepticism and
suspicion of our political
egalitarianism’.

The goal was to be left alone to get on with the things that
really mattered in life: family, friends, hobbies, sports and communing with a
natural environment that had become the special and spectacular birthright of
every Kiwi.

But the “rugged individualism” of the egalitarian New
Zealander was very different from that of the egalitarian American. Up
until the 1980s, this was because the former understood what the latter has never
fully grasped: that individual freedom only emerges through collective endeavour. That’s
why Kiwis used to be such avid “joiners” and “belongers”. Whether it was through
membership of school committees, play-centres, political parties or trade
unions: we did things together.

Breaking the dialectical connection between individualism
and collectivism was one of the key objectives of the neoliberal
counter-revolution that engulfed New Zealand in the 1980s and 90s. The
egalitarian spirit was too deeply entrenched in our national character to be
simply rooted out, so it was essential that the dangerously political message
inherent in the notion that “Jack is as good as his master” be neutralised by redefining
egalitarianism to mean something quite different.

If those on the receiving end of neoliberalism’s
“restructuring” of New Zealand society could be made to believe that “Nobody’s
better than Jack”, then the collective action which posed the most deadly
threat to neoliberalism’s success would be rendered both impracticable and, ultimately, unnecessary.

Neoliberalism’s point of attack was the Kiwi aversion to
being bossed around. If nobody’s better than Jack then nobody should be allowed
to tell Jack what to do. If nobody’s better than Jack, then Jack’s ideas are a
good as anybody else’s. If nobody’s better than Jack then everybody should be
treated the same. Taxes should be flat. Bosses and workers should negotiate
face-to-face, as equals.(No need for unions – or at least, not compulsory ones.)
The media should broadcast programmes that Jack likes – not what that some
pointy-headed intellectual thinks Jack should understand. And Jack’s ideas –
being as good as anyone else’s – should not be sneered at or contradicted by
“experts”. What do they know?

The old egalitarianism confronted all who stood athwart the
path to a fuller life. It did not deny the power of philosophy or science or
art: on the contrary, it demanded equal access to that power. The new
egalitarianism argues that if Jack is only willing to get with programme he’ll
soon realise that the fuller life is already here – to be enjoyed on Jack’s
terms, and nobody else’s.

John Key is both the chief spokesman and ultimate exemplar
of this new egalitarian spirit. Is he our master? Yes. Does that mean he’s
better than us? No way!

This essay was
originally published in The Waikato Times, The Taranaki Daily News, The
Timaru Herald, The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 28 December 2012.

Wednesday, 26 December 2012

A Genuine Humanitarian: But, David Shearer’s back-story has a back-story of its own: an unusual and counter-intuitive fascination with armed force that raises many more questions than it answers.

IT’S SURPRISING how little we know about David Shearer. For
most of us, his sudden appearance among the contenders for Helen Clark’s
vacated seat of Mt Albert was the first appearance he’d made upon the New
Zealand political stage. For Mr Shearer, however, the 2009 Mt Albert
By-Election was a case of third-time-lucky. He had already stood for the Labour
Party twice before: the first time, in 1999, as a lowly ranked candidate on the
Party List; and the second, in 2002, in the safe National seat of Whangarei.

Our ignorance of those earlier attempts is forgivable,
however, because Mr Shearer has always been a political paratrooper. In
contrast to the party foot soldiers who slog their way through the Big Muddy of
branch meetings, canvassing exercises, billboard construction and pamphlet deliveries,
rising through the ranks to fight the good fight on policy committees or the NZ
Council, Mr Shearer’s preference has been to jump into parliamentary
candidacies from a great height and out of a clear sky.

The reason for this top-down method of delivery is Mr
Shearer’s remarkable back-story. It’s not many thirty-five year-olds who are
named New Zealander of the Year, and even fewer are awarded an MBE by the
British Government. Mr Shearer’s experiences delivering aid on behalf of the
Save the Children Fund in war-torn Somalia were genuinely heroic. Here, as far
as the rest of the world was concerned, was a genuine humanitarian. But, Mr
Shearer’s back-story has a back-story of its own: an unusual and counter-intuitive
fascination with armed force that raises many more questions than it answers.

Some political observers have drawn comparisons between Mr
Shearer and his chief antagonist, Prime Minister John Key. The young Labour
activist, Connor Roberts, summed up the pair’s similarities and differences with
his now famous quip: “John Key went overseas and made fifty million dollars;
David Shearer went overseas and saved fifty million lives.”

This focus on Mr Shearer’s and Mr Key’s “overseas”
experiences has led many to assume that both men were out of the country during
the pivotal years 1984-1993. In Mr Shearer’s case, however, this is untrue. For
nearly the whole period of the Fourth Labour Government (1984-1990) he was
here, in New Zealand, studying, teaching and consulting. If he was a Labour Party
member at any time during those tumultuous years, then he was a very quiet one.
He certainly wasn’t among the ranks of those who fought against Rogernomics. He
has, however, often spoken to journalists about his admiration for David
Lange’s speeches.

This inability to get worked up about the core elements of
neoliberal “reform”: labour market flexibility; privatisation; deregulation;
monetary and fiscal discipline; explains his rather odd belief (for a Labour
leader) that the contest between Left and Right is “a phony debate”. Such
ideological agnosticism – explained away as good old Kiwi pragmatism – does,
however, offer us a way into the most unusual and contradictory aspect of Mr
Shearer’s entire career: his support for mercenary armies, or, as they prefer
to be known these days: private military and security companies (PMSCs).

It is possible to trace this thread all the way back to
Somalia in 1992 where Mr Shearer headed up the relief effort of the Save the
Children Fund. It is more than likely he enjoyed a close working relationship
with the United Nations Mission in Somalia and would, therefore, have been
aware of their appeal to the PMSC, Defence Systems Ltd (DSL) for 7,000 Ghurkha
mercenaries to protect their relief convoys. In the end DSL turned them down,
but it is clear that the notion of PMSC involvement in UN protection work (as
opposed to soldiers provided by UN member states) made a deep impression on Mr
Shearer.

That impression was intensified by Mr Shearer’s experiences
three years later as the UN’s Senior Humanitarian Advisor in the West African
nation of Liberia. Just across Liberia’s northern border, in the ravaged state
of Sierra Leone, the PMSC known as Executive Outcomes had been employed under
contract to the Sierra Leone Government. Shearer was deeply impressed by this
mercenary army’s lightning-fast defeat of the Liberian-backed forces assailing
the ruling regime.

Fast and Furious: In 1995 the PMSC, Executive Outcomes, proved spectacularly successful in restoring order to war-ravaged Sierra Leone.

A year later, in 1996, Mr Shearer was advising the UN in
Rwanda. It was here, just two years earlier, that a brutal genocide had taken
place while the United Nations watched – and did nothing. Trying to stitch the
rudiments of civil society back together after a disaster on that scale cannot
have been easy.

This was followed by what might be called the John Le Carré
phase of Mr Shearer’s career; his two-year stint (1996-1998) as a research associate at the
International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS) in London. Like its sister
institute – The Royal Institute of International Affairs, also known as Chatham
House – the IISS has always laboured under strong suspicions of being a sort of
“front organisation” for Britain’s foreign affairs, defence and intelligence
“community”. This was most clearly illustrated in 2003 when the IISS released a
report strongly favouring the UK’s participation in a US-led invasion of Iraq.
Like the infamous “sexed-up” report released by the Security Intelligence
Service (MI6) just two weeks later, the IISS also warned against Saddam Hussein’s
(non-existent) “weapons of mass destruction”. Since 2003 the IISS’s Director of
Transnational Threats and Political Risk has been Nigel Inkster – formerly the
Deputy Director of MI6.

It was into this looking-glass world of spooks and former-spooks
that Mr Shearer settled himself. His research bore spectacular fruit in 1998
when his article “Outsourcing War” was chosen as the cover-story for the Fall
Edition of the prestigious American journal Foreign
Affairs. Extremely well-written, the article is a paean of praise for
outfits like Executive Outcomes and DSL. A very similar article, “Private
Armies & Military Intervention”, was published that same years as Vol. 316
of the IISS’s Adelphi Papers.

Mr Shearer’s time at the IISS certainly did not hinder his
career prospects in the United Nations. In 1999 he left London’s clubby world
of foreign affairs, defence and intelligence cogitation for the considerably less
congenial territory of the Balkans. With the Kosovo Crisis in full cry he
helped coordinate UN aid in Albania, ultimately winding up in Belgrade as Chief
of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
(OCHA).

It’s probably as well to remind ourselves at this point of
the dark history of PMSCs in the former Yugoslavia. The relationship between
the UN and the private enterprises now responsible for everything from basic
logistical services to security personnel was plagued by scandal.
Whistle-blowers and journalists together exposed the links between the UN’s private
contractors and organised crime. Most progressives would have recoiled from the
revelations, but Mr Shearer’s support for the private sector’s increasing
participation in UN operations persisted – especially when it took the form of
PMSCs.

By 2000 Mr Shearer was back in New Zealand and working in
the office of fellow Papatoetoe High School old-boy, Phil Goff – now Minister
of Foreign Affairs and Trade in the newly-elected Labour-Alliance Government.
It was presumably with the latter’s blessing that, in 2001, Mr Shearer penned
yet another article – this time for the Chatham House (remember them?)
newspaper The World Today entitled
“Privatising Protection”.

Though the reluctance of sovereign states to sanction the
entry of foreign mercenaries into their territory had not changed, Mr Shearer’s
article described a world in which private armies were an increasingly common
feature:

Future troops being offered to peacekeeping
forces might well come from private companies rather than states. The US firm
Dyncorp, for example, provided the US share of the Organization for Security
and Co-operation in Europe monitors in Kosovo. Dyncorp is now training
Colombian soldiers in its drug war. Another company, MPRI, also recently in Colombia, continues to train the Bosnia army
in sophisticated US weaponry.(“Privatising
Protection”, The World Today,
August/September 2001)

By
2003 Mr Shearer was back with the UN, this time in the Middle East. As the Head
of OCHA in Jerusalem and then as the UN’s Humanitarian Relief Coordinator
during the Israeli assault on Southern Lebanon and Beirut, he
distinguished himself as a fiercely independent upholder of the UN’s mission. Few
were surprised, therefore, when, in 2007, after four years of negotiating his
way through the labyrinth of Israeli-Palestinian relations, the UN
Secretary-General, Ban Ky Moon, named David Shearer as his Deputy-Special
Representative in Iraq. He was also appointed Head of the UN Development
Project Iraq. Holding these two very senior roles in the United Nations Mission
in Iraq (UNAMI) Mr Shearer was almost certainly “in the room” when decisions
about the use of PMSCs were being made.

Lou
Pingeot, author of the New York-based Global Policy Forum’s June 2012
publication Dangerous Partnership:
Private Military and Security Companies and the UN, has compiled some
useful statistics on the amount of money spent on PMSCs by the UN. “Using the highest available numbers,” he writes, “there is
a 250 percent increase in the use of security services from 2006 to 2011.”

The numbers for UNAMI are particularly interesting. In 2007
UNAMI spent zero dollars on PMSCs. In 2009, when its former 2IC was back in New
Zealand campaigning for Helen Clark’s old seat of Mt Albert, UNAMI also spent
zero dollars. In 2008, however, the amount spent by UNAMI on PMSC’s was US$1,139,745.

It is important to place this expenditure in context. It
was in September of 2007 that the US-based PMSC, Blackwater Worldwide, found
itself at the centre of war-crimes accusations following the unlawful killing
of 17 Iraqi citizens in Baghdad’s Nasour Square by one of the company’s notorious
“Personal Security Details”. The outraged Iraqi government had responded by
revoking Blackwater’s licence to operate within its borders. It is fair to say
that foreign mercenaries were not popular in Iraq in 2008.

Private Solutions? The US-based PMSC, Blackwater Worldwide, earned a fearsome reputation during the Occupation of Iraq.

And so we return to Mr Shearer’s preference for private military
solutions to low intensity conflicts and his conviction that
the United Nations is better able to carry out its humanitarian functions in
something resembling safety with private sector support.

I raised the matter with Mr Shearer’s parliamentary
colleague, Trevor Mallard, at the recent Labour Party Conference and he
suggested that it was all about getting help to people quickly. That is
certainly an important aspect of Mr Shearer’s own writing on the subject:

There is a serious question here: if a
private force, operating with international authority and within international
law, can protect civilians, how moral is it to deny people protection just because
states can’t or won’t find the forces to do it? Or put another way, is the means
of response more important than the end for which it is used – particularly where
a failure to respond results in the death and abuse of
civilians?(“Privatising
Protection”, The World Today,
August/September 2001)

Mr
Shearer’s position has been explained away as just another case of a good Kiwi
bloke, impatient to get the job done, and not being particularly fussed about how things
are made to happen – or by whom. And if the universal experience of mercenary
involvement in “peace-making” was as positive as Executive Outcome’s foray into
Sierra Leone, the argument might have some force. In reality, however,
Executive Outcome’s success in Sierra Leone stands out as a very lonely
exception to a much darker rule.

The
actual, on-the-ground, operational conduct of PMSCs over the past decade has demonstrated
to the world just how dangerous it is to entrust the delivery of deadly force
to individuals and corporations whose primary motivation is profit. Yet even in
the face of the PMSCs’ appalling conduct in the Balkans and Iraq, Mr Shearer
remains sympathetic towards private armies and mercenaries.

The
Labour Leader’s on-going support for these private-sector problem-solvers speaks
volumes – and very little is to his credit.

Tuesday, 25 December 2012

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. - Luke 2:14

A big 'thank you' to everyone who has visited Bowalley Road in 2012 and my special thanks to all who have commented - you have enriched the site immensely. Please accept my very best wishes for a Merry Christmas and a progressive and prosperous New Year.Chris Trotter

Monday, 24 December 2012

A Night To Remember:A grand story it was, and with the Galilean now preaching up and down the Jordan Valley, a story that was being re-told more often.

THE SUN WENT DOWN as it always did. Red and gold gave way to
indigo and the white glitter of stars. Benjamin waited, as he always did, for
the prosody of daylight to make way for the poetry of night – and memory.

Benjamin’s young companion, Joel, waited with him. Wondering
if the older man would recite again his tale of magic and mystery.

A grand story it was, and with the Galilean now preaching up
and down the Jordan Valley, a story that was being re-told more often – and not
only by Benjamin.

It was about a king. A saviour born in a stable. The
Messiah, no less: announced by angels; attended by Parthian wizards; hunted
high and low by Herod; and welcomed into this world by shepherds. Shepherds
like Benjamin – just a boy at the time.

It was a story that glowed with hope … and danger. Because
the Romans crucified anyone they caught telling tales of saviours serving
higher powers. The Jews already had a king, and he answered to just one higher
power – the Emperor. The ruler of the universe lived in Rome – not Jerusalem.

And Rome’s yoke was a heavy one. Taxes – always more and
more to pay. And woe betide the man who paid them late. Because when the Romans
came collecting they always liked to leave something behind. Something to
remember them by. A farmer’s body pierced by the points of their spears. A
son’s face laid open by the studded soles of their sandals. A daughter’s belly
swelling with the bastard child of some lecherous legionary.

Joel still carries the scars, and dreams of the day when he
can repay the Romans for their kindnesses. It’s why he’s so fond of Benjamin’s
tale. For when the Messiah comes and the prophecies are fulfilled Rome’s might
will be as dust in the wind. The Saviour shall drive all before him. His sword
will drip with the blood of the oppressor. And Israel will be free.

It’s why he still has such doubts of the Galilean: this
carpenter’s son from Nazareth; this Jesus. It’s all very well to tell people
that the Kingdom of God is at hand. But David’s kingdom is not about to be
restored by a handful of farmers and fishermen. Rome’s legions will not be
defeated by turning the other cheek.

“Describe it to me again, Benjamin. Tell me again of the
Messiah’s birth.”

The old shepherd smiles into the darkness.

“Light and dark, Joel. Grandeur and humility. For a moment
the veil that separates the material from the immaterial was lifted. We, the
mortal creatures of time, beheld immortality: caught a glimpse of the eternal.”

“But it was a king’s birth, Benjamin. There was gold and
frankincense and myrrh. Wise men from the East. You were the first to greet the
Messiah: the saviour; the redeemer of Israel. You saw him.”

“I saw a mewling child still smeared with his mother’s
blood. I saw three tired men: travel-stained and weeping. The air was
filled with the stench of mortality, Joel. Kings are the children of kings, my
young friend. But this child, this Jesus, was the Son of Man.”

“But he shall be mighty, Benjamin. He shall lead armies. He
shall destroy Rome!”

The old shepherd looked up into the night sky: recalling the
star’s brilliance; the angels’ shout; the pain of knowing.

“There is a kingdom greater than Israel’s, Joel. An empire
larger than Rome’s. And he, the Son of Man, the blood-smeared child wrapped not
in purple silk, but in the rough swaddling-cloth of a peasant girl, will lead
us there.

“You look for a warrior-king. A man of might upon a white
horse. But all Death’s horses are pale, Joel, and the Devil rides them.

“‘Peace on Earth’, the angels said. ‘Good will toward men’.
The Galilean says it still.”

“And the Romans will kill him for it, Benjamin.”

“Yes, Joel. But he will not die.”

This short story was
first published in The Dominion Post,
The Waikato Times, The Taranaki
Daily News, The Timaru Herald, The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 21 December 2012.

Tuesday, 18 December 2012

How Free? New Zealanders like to think they live in "a free country". But, between the theory of democratic citizenship and its practice in the everyday lives of ordinary Kiwis, the gulf grows wider and wider.

“IT’S A FREE COUNTRY.” Ask someone if it’s okay to sit down,
make a coffee, or take a squiz at the paper, and chances are you’ll receive
this stock response. But just because a phrase is oft repeated doesn’t make it
untrue. Ours is a free, open and
democratic society, where everything that isn’t expressly forbidden is
permitted.

Isn’t it?

Just a few days ago I was chatting with a group of young New
Zealanders and the conversation turned to blogs and blogging. My companions were
all intelligent, well-educated and gainfully employed Kiwis, and yet I was
staggered to learn that none of them were willing to either post or comment on
a blog using their own name.

Why were they so unwilling to put their names to their
thoughts? What did they think would happen to them if they did? This is New
Zealand, I reminded them with a puzzled frown. We’re not living in Putin’s
Russia or North Korea. This is still “a free country”.

They gave me that weary, gently condescending look which
Gen-Xers reserve for members of the Baby Boom generation who just don’t have a
clue what life is like for people who didn’t grow up in the 1960s and 70s.

“If I apply for a job”, said one, “I don’t want my
prospective employer to Google my name and be confronted with a whole series of
fiery left-wing rants on controversial subjects.”

“It can hurt you professionally”, said another, “if your
boss reads something you’ve written on a blog that he or she finds
objectionable. It can harm your career prospects.”

“Or get you fired.”

This was too much. Had none of them heard of the Bill of
Rights Act? The Human Rights Act? The Employment Relations Act? All New
Zealanders are guaranteed the freedom of expression. It is illegal to be
discriminated against on the basis of one’s beliefs. No one can be sacked for
having an opinion – no matter how controversial.

“Maybe not in your day,” responded my young companions,
“back when unions were strong and a civil service job was for life. But things
are different now. Everyone’s vulnerable.”

And of course they were right. As we argued back and forth I
suddenly recalled the extraordinary content of a recorded conversation
broadcast on Radio New Zealand’s “Morning Report” on Monday 10 December – just
a few days earlier.

Todd Rippon, a “Lord of the Rings” Tour Guide employed by
Wellington-based Rover Tours Ltd, was fighting to keep his job following the
communication of negative “feedback” to his employer, Scott Courtney, by the
staff of Absolutely Positively Wellington Tourism. Mr Rippon’s offence? To have
spoken in less than glowing terms about Sir Peter Jackson – a charge which Mr
Rippon emphatically denies.

Listening to the recording, however, it soon became clear
that the offence Mr Rippon’s boss objected to most strenuously was his
employee’s active participation in the Actors Equity union.

“You’re involved with an organisation that is completely at
odds with what I do”, Mr Courtney told his employee, even though Mr Rippon’s
work as a tour guide was quite separate from his career as a professional actor
and his role as the Vice-President of his union.

Also clear was that Tourism New Zealand – a body with which
Mr Courtney’s firm works very closely – harboured similar misgivings concerning
Mr Rippon’s associations.

When Mr Rippon asked his boss: “And what about the pressure
from Tourism New Zealand? Do you think that it’s harming you that I’m working
for you?” Mr Courtney replied: “Yes, I do.”

“Because Tourism New Zealand disapproves?”

“It will be something that is always at the back of their
mind.”

This admission by Mr Courtney is deeply troubling. Tourism
New Zealand has no legitimate interest whatsoever in the groups with whom Mr
Rippon chooses to exercise his statutory right to freedom of association.

It got worse.

The industrial dispute between Actors Equity and Sir Peter
Jackson over the filming of The Hobbit
had appalled Mr Rippon’s boss:

“I am disgusted with what the Actors Equity union did and
what their position is. It affects me, it affects my business. I don’t believe
what they did was right. And it’s not something I want my company, or anyone
involved with my company, to be involved with.”

When Mr Rippon objects: “You can’t set me aside because I
belong to that.” Mr Courtney replies: “But I can! You see, this is the point.”

“You can’t do
that!” protests Mr Rippon. “ It’s a basic human right to be a member of a
union!”

“No, no, no!” Mr Courtney snaps back. “It’s not!”

It is difficult to imagine a better demonstration of the
gulf which now exists between the theory and practice of democratic citizenship
in contemporary New Zealand.

A free country? If only!

This essay was
originally published in The Press of Tuesday,
18 December 2012.

Friday, 14 December 2012

Justice Minister? The rest of the world will look askance at a New Zealand Cabinet Minister’s public denigration of the internationally renowned Canadian jurist, Justice Ian Binnie. Collin’s conduct condemns us as a nation of ignorant and politically reckless barbarians.

ARTHUR ALLAN THOMAS, Peter Ellis, David Bain – and these are
just the cases that have seared themselves into our consciousness. How many similar
miscarriages of justice have blighted the lives of innocent men and women: passing unnoticed for want of a Pat Booth, a Lynley Hood or a Joe Karam
to stir the nation's conscience? What is it about the New Zealand Establishment that
renders it virtually incapable of self-correction? What makes our rulers so
unwilling to admit their mistakes?

Today it’s Judith Collins whose been caught in flagrante delicto with error. But the
present Justice Minister is simply the most recent in a long line of
politicians who have decided that they and the system they represent are in all
respects beyond reprimand, admonition or rebuke. That in New Zealand the
powers-that-be are incorrectable.

Is it because we’re so small? Are the hidden networks connecting
those who wield political, judicial and economic power over our daily lives so
hopelessly entangled; so pervasively compromised by unacknowledged conflicts of
interest; that even the slightest scrutiny would instantly provoke a general
collapse in public trust and confidence? Is that the reason we constantly emerge from
international comparisons as the least corrupt country on the planet? Not
because we are incorruptible, but because by the general (if unspoken) agreement of
the elites, incidents which in other jurisdictions would inevitably attract
accusations of corruption and malfeasance are in New Zealand consistently characterised
as something else?

There’s no doubt that the New Zealand Establishment has
become extraordinarily proficient at protecting itself. Just consider the three
cases already referred to: the Thomas Case, the Ellis Case and the Bain Case. What
was the common factor which ensured that Thomas and Bain were vindicated? What
is Peter Ellis still waiting for? The answer, of course, is a foreign pair of
eyes. Thomas was rescued by Rob Muldoon’s populist instincts. Recognising an
obvious Establishment stitch-up, he initiated a Royal Commission of Inquiry
headed by an Australian judge. Bain was saved by the five pairs of British eyes
assigned to his case by the Privy Council in London. Peter Ellis’s great
misfortune is that those responsible for reviewing his case have all been senior
members of the New Zealand judiciary.

It should never be forgotten that in all of these cases the
New Zealand Court of Appeal upheld the wrongful conviction of innocent men.
Evidentiary insecurity – in all cases due to “lapses” in the gathering and
retention of crucial forensic material and/or testimony – was never considered by
the Court as being of sufficient weight to vacate the earlier verdicts. Not
even when, in the Ellis case, the evidence was patently absurd and obviously untrue.

And now we have the Report of Justice Ian Binnie – a Canadian jurist
with a formidable international reputation – who, like so many other foreign
judges, has studied the evidence used to convict a New Zealand citizen and
unequivocally rejected it as unpersuasive of anything except that person’s
innocence. In arriving at his conclusions he has had a few highly critical
things to say about the way the New Zealand Police conducted their
investigations. And, by implication, the New Zealand Court of Appeal is criticised for its failure to spot what was so clear to both himself and UK Privy Council.

Asked by the then Justice Minister, Simon Power, to help
the Cabinet to decide whether or not to compensate David Bain for the 13 years he
spent in jail, Justice Binnie could have had no inkling of the insults to which
Power’s successor, Judith Collins would subject him.

Collin’s behaviour is explicable only in terms of the New
Zealand Establishment’s blank refusal to be corrected. Upon receiving Justice
Binnie’s report her first instinct was to pass it on to the Solicitor General
and the Police. The Canadian judge had dared to suggest that they had erred – a
conclusion which was plainly false since the New Zealand authorities are
incapable of error. In spite of passing on the report to parties which were, in
effect, Bain’s opponents, the Justice Minister did not think it proper to provide a copy to the legal
representatives of the man most directly involved. Not content with this
extraordinary breach of the basic principles of fairness, she then commissioned
a former New Zealand High Court judge, Robert Fisher QC, to “peer review” the former Canadian Supreme Court Judge’s
findings.

The Minister’s extraordinary behaviour was then compounded
by her decision to unleash a campaign of public denigration against Justice
Binnie. The eminent jurist was painted as an incompetent assessor of evidence
and accused of having a poor understanding of “New Zealand Law”. In a chilling
example of ruthless politicking, Collins withheld Justice Binnie’s report until
Fisher QC’s critique of its findings could be released simultaneously. In this
way Bain’s opponents would have a ready counter to Justice Binnie’s
conclusions.

The rest of the world will look askance at a New Zealand Cabinet
Minister’s public denigration of an internationally renowned jurist. Collins’
conduct condemns us as a nation of ignorant and politically reckless barbarians.
Her seeming disregard for the ability of future New Zealand governments to
access expert international legal advice renders her unfit to hold the office
of Justice Minister, and her failure to honour the most basic
requirements of natural justice should attract the strong censure of the New
Zealand Law Society.

Will it happen? Probably not. Judith Collins’ behaviour is
entirely consistent with the New Zealand Establishment’s “incorrectable”
traditions. The Prime Minister has already cast the cloak of his protection
over her shoulders, and that part of the population which prefers to believe
that its political, judicial and economic masters are as blameless and honourable
as they are disinterested and incorruptible will cheer her to the echo.

Better by far that ten innocent people remain incarcerated than
the corrupt New Zealand Establishment which wrongfully convicted them ever be held
accountable.

By Their Fruits Shall Ye Know Them: To the neoliberal political elite the victims of Pike River and the CTV Building Collapse are simply collateral damage in an unending struggle against those who attempt to restrict the free play of market forces.

TWO TRAGEDIES: a mine explosion and an engineering failure:
and neither needed to happen. That they did
happen is attributable, almost entirely, to the influence of neoliberalism –
the most pernicious political ideology to assail the modern world since
fascism.

In a sane country, Pike River and the collapse of the CTV
Building would already have brought the thirty-year-long reign of neoliberalism
to an end. But “sane” is no longer an adjective applicable to New Zealand
society. Sane societies learn from their mistakes. Have we? Do we still know
how?

I say “we”, but the
collective entity I’m actually referring to is the very thin layer of
politicians, business leaders, top civil servants and public relations experts
who “govern” the rest of us. For these people, neoliberalism has taken on the
unquestionable character of a religious faith and is, therefore, impervious to
evidential refutation.

And precisely because it is a faith, neither Pike River nor
the CTV Building Collapse will produce anything very much in the way of
meaningful change. The neoliberal elite fervently believe that “heavy-handed”
regulation is a more profound long-term threat to the public good than gassy mines
or badly designed buildings.

To this political class, the 29 Pike River miners and the
115 victims of the CTV Building Collapse are simply unfortunate casualties:
collateral damage in the never-ending war against those who would constrain the
free operation of market forces.

New Zealanders could take heart if there was even one major
political party that opposed without equivocation the neoliberal policies in
which their country is enmeshed. But, think about it: when was the last time
you heard a spokesperson for the Labour Party not only condemn the policies and
plans of the National-led Government, but also promise that, immediately upon
taking office, Labour will repeal the legislation giving effect to those plans
and policies?

Consider, for example, the formation of the Ministry of
Business, Innovation and Employment (MoBIE). This brain-dead bureaucratic
monstrosity is the brain-child of National Cabinet Minister, Steven Joyce, and
is the very last organisational model a government would adopt if it was
genuinely concerned about the health and safety of workers in dangerous
industries like mining and forestry. The Royal Commission of Inquiry into the
Pike River Disaster, itself, specifically recommended the establishment of a
stand-alone health and safety agency. The Prime Minister demurred.

A Tragedy Waiting To Happen: The Pike River Coal Company failed comprehensively to ensure the safety of its workforce. Under neoliberalism it is always Money First - People Second.

Now it’s true that Labour opposed the formation of MoBIE and
voted against the legislation setting it up, but has anyone heard them promise
to instantly dismantle it upon taking office? Have they unequivocally endorsed
the Royal Commission’s recommendation of a stand-alone agency or, failing that,
pledged to rebuild the full regulatory capacity of the Department of Labour?

Come to think of it, has Labour ever honestly acknowledged
its responsibility for unleashing the fast-talking, hands-off, corner-cutting
wide-boys whose feverish appetite for quick and excessive profit-taking led
directly to jerry-built tragedies-in-waiting like the CTV building?

Now, to be fair, Labour’s organisational wing has attempted to acknowledge the party’s role
in unleashing the neoliberal ideology on an unsuspecting New Zealand. In the
first chapter of the initial draft of the party’s new policy “platform” its
authors state: “[T]he Fourth Labour Government’s programme of extensive
economic reform was in breach of Labour’s traditions and values. Without any
specific mandate this Labour government ….. gave up a large degree of
regulatory control in favour of unrestrained market forces.”

That draft has yet to be ratified, and I must confess to
being more than a little sceptical of ever hearing David Shearer or David
Parker deliver so unequivocal a repudiation of Labour’s neoliberal past. Not
while Mr Shearer’s predecessor, Phil Goff, continues to influence Labour’s
economic and social policy-making. It was, after all, Mr Goff who told Radio
New Zealand’s political editor, Brent Edwards, in July 2009: “a
well-functioning market system is the most effective and efficient way of
organising an economy.”

The tragedies of Pike River and Christchurch’s CTV Building
are judgements written in blood against neoliberalism. Grim testimonials to the
moral delinquency of a system that puts profit and convenience ahead of
human-beings and safety.

It’s now up to us, while democracy endures in this country,
to dig down to the roots of our national malaise. To wrench out the neoliberal
ivy that is relentlessly strangling our institutions – and killing our fellow
citizens.

This essay was
originally published in The Waikato Times, The Taranaki Daily News, The
Timaru Herald, The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star.

Thursday, 13 December 2012

The Nature Of The Beast: How should journalism be defined in Twenty-First Century New Zealand?

WHAT DOES IT MEAN to be a journalist in Twenty-First Century
New Zealand? Why do thousands of young people every year sign up (and pay for)
tertiary courses in journalism and communications studies? It certainly isn’t for
the journalist's starting salary. Modern journalism is a high-stress, unrelenting,
poorly-paid and (if the trust and confidence surveys are to be believed) almost
universally despised profession. Why bother?

The oldest and still the most common answer journalists,
both real and aspiring, offer to those who ask this question is: “To make a
difference.” Ever since the invention of the printing press, people with something
to say have seized the opportunity communication technology provides to reach a mass audience. In other words, people become journalists to access
the power of the media. Their motivation is political.

Most journalists are loath to admit
that power and politics have even the slightest bearing on their reasons for joining the
profession. They’ll object that their motivations were much more honourable
than the crude pursuit of power. Many will insist that they were only interested
in sharing information with the public. Some will say they joined to right
wrongs and correct abuses. Others will plead simple curiosity – an overwhelming
need to know what’s going on.

They should not be believed.

The first thing that any journalist encounters – no matter
whether he or she is in print, radio, television or web journalism – is their new
employers’ editorial culture. This will determine practically every aspect of
their job. If they’re interested only in gathering and disseminating
information, the editorial culture of the newspaper, magazine, radio station or
TV network will very soon make it clear which information is to be gathered and
disseminated and which is best left alone. If they’re out to slay ogres and
dragons they’ll be told which ones are fair game and which ones to leave
undisturbed. If they’re simply curious they’ll learn very swiftly that there
are institutions and individuals about whom it is positively dangerous to ask
too many questions.

Every journalist entering the profession, therefore, has a
choice. Submit to the culture, or walk away. That so few choose to walk away speaks volumes about the professional temperament of journalists.
The thrill of reaching and influencing a mass audience trumps just about every
other consideration. As is the case with all mercenaries, money is important to
the working journalist – but it isn’t crucial. They do what they do because
nothing else comes close. Who cares if the issues being addressed and the
editorial line being followed are dictated by somebody else? It’s the
journalists’ words, and their images, that make the difference on the ground.

If you remain doubtful that journalists are essentially power-seeking
politicos with keyboards and/or cameras, just consider the twenty-first
century “communications” career-path. In the process of making a master communicator
journalism is only the apprenticeship phase. A few years of “churnalism”, of
demonstrating that he or she possesses a safe pair of hands, and the apprentice
is taken up into the public relations industry.

Providing there’s nothing in the journalist’s career suggesting
some unwillingness to embrace the culture of their paymasters, the shift to PR
work will generally double their income overnight. In this world there’s no
place for idealistic self-justifications. Here, the journalist’s talents for
effective communication are to be placed unashamedly at the disposal of
corporate power – end of story.

An alternative path to becoming a well-paid shill for the
rich and the powerful is via the offices of Government and Opposition
politicians. For ambitious members of the Parliamentary Press Gallery, becoming
a “spin-doctor” is easily the quickest route to a six-figure salary. It does,
however, require a solid grasp of the realities of political reporting: hunt as
a pack; share the spoils; and under no circumstances attempt to write your own
words or music to the unfolding drama.

Above all else, the successful political journalist
understands and accepts that democratic politics can only be about the replacement
and replenishment of elites. Faces may come and go, but the fundamental story must
always be the same. Politicians and journalists who attempt to construct and/or
popularise a political narrative substantially at odds with the version
provided by “official sources” should anticipate neither a lengthy nor a successful
career.

This examination of Twenty-First Century New Zealand
journalism cannot, however, be concluded without a word or two concerning the glittering
exceptions to the profession’s new rules. These are the celebrity journalists –
the handful of political editors, presenters, news-readers, talk-back hosts and
entertainers who dominate the electronic media and are, thus, the principal
shapers of public opinion.

Like the actors of Ancient Greece, their role is to demonstrate
how little we human-beings control the urges and forces that shape our
universe. To explain, in short, the ways of gods to men.

In the Twenty-First Century these deities are the great
private and public organisations to which most of us offer up our daily labour. Through the celebrity journalists' own carefully constructed masks and most particularly through the heroes and heroines they
create, we are invited to participate vicariously in both the comedy and
tragedy of the human condition. In their stories we learn to recognise hubris and hamartia, the
overweening pride and the fatal flaws, that first raise up and then cast down
the dramatis personae of our ruling elites.

What they dare not do – on pain of themselves being cast down from
the electronic Olympus – is encourage their audience to believe that the
greatest story of all; the story yet to be written; is the story ordinary
people will one day write for themselves.

Tuesday, 11 December 2012

Vulnerable Medium: The young editors of the Otago Labour Regional Council's newspaper, Caucus, could only reach their readership through the expensive processes of the printing press. This gave their publisher, by virtue of its control of the purse-strings, the ability to shut the paper down if it strayed too far in the direction of controversy. That was in the early 1980s. Today's political bloggers cannot be silenced so easily - or so they thought.

THE FIRST ISSUE of Caucus
appeared in September 1982 and the last in April 1983. The third (and final)
issue featured a highly critical opinion-piece entitled: “Yes – I’m the Great
Pretender: A Socialist Critique of David Lange.” Since Lange had only been Labour’s
Leader since February 1983, the editors’ decision to publish the critique in a
Labour Party newspaper was either exceptionally brave or extremely foolish.

The newspaper’s publisher, the Otago Regional Council of the
Labour Party, did not have to wait long for Lange’s reaction. At its next
meeting the Labour Leader turned up unannounced, asked the man on the door to
point out the author of the offending article, took a seat beside him, removed
a copy of Caucus No. 3 from his
briefcase and tore it into little pieces.

The Port Chalmers Branch of the Labour Party went one better
than their leader. After passing a motion of censure in the newspaper’s
editors, all 200 of their branch’s copies of Caucus were burned.

A few days later, Caucus’s
two young editors were asked to drive Labour’s then Transport spokesperson,
Richard Prebble, to Oamaru for a “Save Rail” rally. Mr Prebble took advantage
of his captive audience to deliver a stern homily on party discipline.

“Your first mistake”, he told the hapless twenty-somethings,
“was to assume that the Labour Party is a democracy.”

Thirty years later, supporters of internal Labour Party
democracy are facing many important differences from the early 1980s, but also
some startling continuities.

The most obvious difference between 1982 and 2012 is the
size of the party. Labour’s current membership is reportedly at an historic
low, but thirty years ago it was at an all-time high. Putting to one side the
trade unions’ affiliated membership, Labour’s branch membership in the early
1980s numbered more than 80,000. The very fact that a regional council
possessed sufficient funds to publish its own newspaper points not only to the
sheer scale, but also the organisational vitality, of what was indisputably a
mass political movement.

It was also a time before the invention of the World Wide
Web. To reach a mass audience in the early 1980s required the assistance of a
printing-press – and that cost money. Having strayed beyond the paths of acceptable
opinion, Caucus very quickly
discovered that he who pays the piper calls the tune. Not that the Otago
Regional Council would ever censor its own newspaper – perish the thought! It
was simply a matter of budget priorities, which were deemed, in the weeks
following the notorious Caucus No. 3,
to NOT include a regional party newspaper.

The Offending Article: Said Richard Prebble to the editors of Caucus: "Your first mistake was to assume that the Labour Party is a democracy."

In 2012 no party subsidy is required for Labour members and
supporters to speak to one another. The World Wide Web and the “blogs” it has
spawned have relocated the no-holds-barred political debate which the young
editors of Caucus had so courageously
attempted to encourage in 1982-83 to “cyberspace” – a realm well beyond the
financial veto of the Labour Party’s regional and national hierarchies.

Foremost among New Zealand’s Labour-focused blogs is The Standard (its name inspired by
Labour’s nationwide newspaper of the 1940s and 50s) with a readership in the
hundreds-of-thousands. Like Caucus, The Standard has earned the wrath of the
party hierarchy (and especially Labour’s parliamentary caucus) for its
outspoken criticism of Labour’s leader – criticism that’s only grown louder
following the demotion of Mr Shearer’s purported challenger, David Cunliffe.

It is at this point that we encounter some powerful
continuities with the Labour Party of thirty years ago. For it would seem that
those participating in The Standard
have made the same “mistake” as the editors of Caucus: that of assuming the Labour Party to be a democracy.

Stung by The Standard’s
continued criticism of Mr Shearer, a “senior Labour MP” is reportedly seeking
to limit the ability of Labour members to post articles and/or offer commentary
on any blog operating outside the effective editorial control of the party
organisation. Even more damning, from the perspective of a generation raised on
the ethical protocols of the Web, information supplied in confidence to the
Labour Caucus controlled blogsite, Red
Alert, is allegedly being used to identify Labour members participating
either anonymously or pseudonymously on The
Standard and other blogs critical of Labour’s performance.

It is too soon to predict the outcome of this latest attempt
to curb democratic debate within the Labour Party. It is, however, possible to
draw some lessons from the fate of Caucus.

Prophetically, the author of “Yes – I’m the Great Pretender”
wrote: “It is ironic that Lange leading the fourth Labour government will
probably succeed in the reconstruction of capitalist relations where National
has failed.” How very different Labour – and New Zealand – might have been had
such prophetic insights been debated instead of suppressed.

Only a democratic Labour Party can re-construct a democratic
New Zealand.

This essay was
originally published in The Press of Tuesday,
11 December 2012.

Friday, 7 December 2012

Making Greens See Red: German Green Party leader (and Foreign Minister in Germany's first Red-Green Coalition Government) Joschka Fischer, copped an earful of abuse (and red paint) after endorsing the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999. Paint-bombs notwithstanding, the special Green Party conference which convened at Bielefeld to debate Fischer's decision voted to put the retention of political power ahead of its pacifist principles. Sometime between now and 2014 New Zealand's Greens face an equally uncomfortable appointment with reality.

“WARMONGERS! WARMONGERS!”, chanted the protesters as Green
Party delegates, escorted by police, made their way into Bielefeld’s
Seidensticker Hall. It was May 13 1999 and the Children of May 1968 had an
appointment with Reality.

Over the rogue state of Serbia NATO bombers were staging a
“humanitarian intervention” on behalf of the threatened citizens of the
breakaway province of Kosovo. For the first time since the end of World War II,
German forces were engaged abroad.

Joschka Fischer, Green Party leader and Foreign Minister in
Germany’s first Red-Green Coalition Government, had endorsed the decision to
intervene. At Bielefeld, 800 delegates would decide whether or not his dramatic
departure from the Green Party’s founding principle of “Non-Violence” would
stand. The long-simmering battle between the right-leaning “Realos” (Realists)
and the left-leaning “Fundis” (Fundamentalists) was about to be decided.

As it usually does, “Reality” won the day at Bielefeld. The
German Greens, faced with the choice of modifying their principles or stepping
away from their coalition with the Social Democrats, decided (415/335) to
modify their principles. All violence might be awful – but some forms of
violence were more awful than others.

The NATO sorties continued.

Whether they believe the German Greens grew up – or sold out
– at Bielefeld, New Zealand’s Greens, at some point during the next three
years, will inevitably be faced with a Bielefeld of their own.

It is entirely unrealistic for a political party to join a
coalition government without first acknowledging the inevitability of
compromise. This is especially true if the party in question attracted fewer
votes, and thus has fewer seats, than its prospective partner. The larger party
cannot be expected to re-order its policy priorities or sacrifice its leading
personnel merely to keep its junior partner happy. To do so would attract – and
merit – universal scorn.

Such are the brutal realities of coalition politics. Parties
either accept them – and become genuine players in the political game. Or, they
reject them and remain permanent political spectators.

It is really only the world’s Green parties which struggle
to accept these largely self-evident rules. As the ideological offspring of May
1968 (the year in which the great counter-cultural uprising of the world’s
youth reached its zenith) the prototypical German Greens eschewed all political
hierarchy in favour of “Appropriate Decision-Making” – by which they meant
“grass-roots”, “bottom-up”, consensus-based democracy. And this was no mere
rhetorical flourish: Greens really do believe that the way they arrive at major
decisions is every bit as important as the decisions they make.

All of which lays a heavy burden on the shoulders of Russel
Norman and Metiria Turei. Rather than laying claim to portfolios their
prospective coalition partners in the Labour Party couldn’t possibly agree to
assign them (not without opening up huge divisions within its own ranks) the
Greens’ co-leaders should be thinking about how to reconcile their fellow party
members’ to the unavoidable compromises of coalition politics.

Because these are likely to be both numerous and
unpalatable. On practically every economic and social issue that matters the
Greens have positioned themselves well to the left of Labour. That being the
case, very few, if any, of the Greens’ preferred solutions to the high dollar,
unemployment, child poverty, homelessness, climate change and dirty dairying,
will win Labour’s unqualified endorsement.

As a political party on its way to the Treasury Benches, the
New Zealand Greens would be wise to learn from the experience of their German
counterparts. Tumultuous gatherings on the model of the Bielefeld Conference
make for the most stunning political theatre, but the long-term consequences in
terms of preserving ideological coherence, or even the enduring good-will and
commitment of the party rank-and-file can be extremely debilitating.

It wasn’t just an earful of red-paint that the “warmonger”,
Joschka Fischer, received in the Seidensticker Hall. His role in undermining
the Green’s pacifist traditions won him a new and much less flattering image
than the “principled activist” persona he had worn since 1968.

Reality plays no favourites.

This essay was
originally published in The Dominion Post, The Waikato Times, The
Taranaki Daily News, The Timaru
Herald, The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 7 December 2012.

Tuesday, 4 December 2012

It's Alive! When the monster escapes its creator's control terrible things happen. 'Waitakere Man' first appeared on the pages of The Independent Business Weekly in September 2009 and gained wide currency as a shorthand term for Labour's conservative deserters to National. Now Waitakere Man has found his own political avatar - John Tamihere.

FOR DR FRANKENSTEIN the moment of maximum horror and surprise
came when the monster he’d created disobeyed his orders. He’d assumed it was
his to command. But, once abroad in the world, the monster went its own way.

Mulling over the Labour Party’s decision to re-admit John
Tamihere to its ranks, I’m beginning to understand how Dr Frankenstein felt.
“Waitakere Man” – the monster I created more than three years ago on the pages
of The Independent Business Weekly – has
not only gone its own way, it’s acquired a powerful, new, flesh-and-blood
political avatar.

Before proceeding any further, I’d better introduce my monster.
He was born out of a desire to understand the character of the thousands of
former Labour voters who had switched to National in the elections of 2005 and
2008.

This is how I described the person I called “Waitakere Man”
back in 2009:

He’s the sort of bloke who spends Saturday
afternoon knocking-back a few beers on the deck he built himself, and Saturday
evening watching footy with his mates on the massive flat-screen plasma-TV he’s
still paying-off.
His missus works part-time to help out with the mortgage, and to keep their
school-age offspring in cell-phones and computer games.His trade certificate earns him much more than most university degrees. Indeed,
he’s nothing but contempt for "smart-arse intellectual bastards spouting
politically-correct bullshit".

What he owns, he’s earned – and means to keep.

"The best thing we could do for this country, apart from ditching that
bitch in Wellington and making John Key prime-minister," he informed his
drinking-buddies in the lead-up to the 2008 election "would be to police
the liberals – and liberate the police."

Waitakere Man values highly those parts of the welfare state that he and his
family use – like the public education and health systems – but has no time at
all for "welfare bludgers".

"Get those lazy buggers off the benefit", he’s constantly telling his
wife, "and the government would be able to give us a really decent
tax-cut."

On racial issues he’s conflicted. Some of his best friends really are Maori –
and he usually agrees with the things John Tamihere says on Radio Live.

It’s only when the discussion veers towards
politics, and his Maori mates start teasing him about taking back the country,
treaty settlement by treaty settlement, that his jaw tightens and he subsides
into sullen silence.

Though he didn’t say so openly at the time, he’d
been thrilled by Don Brash’s Orewa Speech, and reckoned the Nats’
"Iwi-Kiwi" billboards were "bloody brilliant!"

Waitakere Man proved
troublesome from the moment he emerged from my computer keyboard. Many people
believed he was my avatar. They charged me with counselling the Labour
Party to embrace this bigoted blowhard and tailor its policies to suit his
prejudices. Not true. My intent was only ever to make Labour aware of Waitakere
Man’s existence. To remind the party that he represented a lot of voters,
perhaps as many as five percent of the electorate, and that if Labour had no thought
of reclaiming this important political demographic, it could not avoid devising
some means of replacing it.

But it soon became clear
that Labour – or at least those elements advising Phil Goff – were openly entertaining
thoughts of reclaiming Waitakere Man from National. They were anxious to shed
the party’s image of being a place where no red-blooded, heterosexual working men
would dare to venture; where political correctness had ousted common sense; and
where the pet causes of educated middle-class New Zealanders (teachers) took
precedence over the values of ordinary Kiwis (small businessmen).

The social liberals and
trade unionists in Labour’s Caucus defeated Mr Goff’s attempt to re-connect
with Waitakere Man. But, under his successor, David Shearer, the invitation has
been re-sent. Mr Shearer’s sickness-beneficiary-on-the-roof story was one sop
to the Waitakere Cerberus, his veiled threat to the teaching profession
another.

And now, apparently at the behest of Mr Shearer, the New Zealand Council of the Labour Party has voted
to re-admit Mr Tamihere to full membership status. Waitakere Man now possesses
his very own ideological champion.

But what an ideology! Mr
Tamihere is, after all, the man whose unreconstructed sexism and homophobia (“front-bums”,
“queers”) cost him his seat at Helen Clark’s Cabinet Table. His subsequent
career as Radio Live’s political shock-jock has only given these intellectually
bankrupt and reactionary prejudices a wider audience. In welcoming him back,
Labour’s New Zealand Councillors have spat in the faces of their most
progressive members.

Because, like Dr Frankenstein’s
monster, Waitakere Man’s newly-minted avatar answers to no one but himself.
Labour has opened the door to an individual who regards most of its membership with
undisguised contempt.

When, inevitably, he
brings his knee up between progressive Labour’s legs, let no one who voted for Mr
Tamihere’s re-admission feign either horror or surprise.

This essay was originally published in The Press of Tuesday, 4 December 2012.